ABSTRACT
The chapter analyses the term ‘urbanity’ and its changing facets from the perspective of longue durée. With a short history of urbanity, the author argues that in a global perspective, urbanity is not always a necessary outcome of urbanization. Urbanity as a concept is infinitely flexible, though its original usage as suave or citified became redundant. She has highlighted the difficulty of tracing the roots of urbanism here. Mukherjee traces and reveals the complexities in understanding the concept of urbanity. Her chapter also deals with some notions such as urban attributes, urban typologies, urban layouts, urbanization as a process, and the like, which are pertinent for taking a comprehensive view about urbanity. For Mukherjee, it is imperative to look at the typologies of cities to discuss urbanism, which she views as the culture and philosophy of cities.
